Call of Duty 4 leads BAFTA shortlist

BAFTA has this morning unveiled the shortlist for its 2009 video game awards – with Call of Duty 4 leading the shortlist.

The Activision Blizzard FPS gets seven nominations. GTA IV gets six nominations, while Fable II and LittleBigPlanet get five each.

The winners will be named on March 10th, at an event hosted by comedian Dara O’Braian.

The Academy seels to recognise “creative achievements across Film, Television and Video Games” and says that one nomination – for Steven Spielberg’s EA game Boom Blox ‘could not better exemplify the synergies between these three art forms of the moving image’.

For this year’s awards a special publicly-voted prize will be up for grabs too, the GAME Award of 2008.

(The only award to be voted for by the public)Call of Duty: Modern WarfareInfinity Ward/ActivisionFallout 3Bethesda Game Studio/Bethesda Software EuropeGears of War 2Epic Games/Microsoft Game StudiosGrand Theft Auto IVRockstar North/Take Two InteractiveGuitar Hero World TourNeversoft/Activision Left 4 DeadValve/ValveLittleBigPlanetMedia Molecule & XDEV Studio Europe/SCEEProfessor Layton and the Curious VillageNintendo/NintendoWii FitNintendo/NintendoWorld of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich KingBlizzard Entertainment/Activision

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